Let The Grim Chase Us
by CosmicEdge
Summary: Harry wasn't sure why Malfoy contacted him in the first place. He wasn't sure why he went over to his house, either. He definitely wasn't sure why the former Slytherin decided that Harry was the only one he could talk to. And he wasn't sure why, after five years of no contact, he had decided to listen. But now he's sure that there's no going back.
1. Owl

**Finally back.**

 **I don't own Harry Potter.**

1.

A month after Ginny left Harry, he received a Floo call from Draco.

He was sitting in the foyer, mechanically drinking an espresso – he didn't want to sleep anymore, he dreamed of her and then would wake up to a cold bed – and then Draco's head appeared in the flames.

Of course, Harry had started and spilled the hot drink all over himself, and of course Draco had simply rolled his eyes while the former Gryffindor had leapt about the room, howling. And of course, after Harry had returned from getting a new pair of pants, Draco had said, "Well, I see your manners haven't changed much. It's rude to keep a guest waiting, you know."

Harry sat down and rested his elbows on his knees. " _You_ called _me_ , Malfoy. That makes you an intruder, not a guest. How did you even find out where I lived?"

"I work at the Ministry, Potter. Remember? Funny how it's you that ended up just living off your fortune," he sneered.

Harry clenched his jaw. "What do you want?"

"Blunt." Draco paused for a moment. "I… I am formally inviting you over to my house."

"What?"

He rolled his eyes once more. "Do you really need me to say it again? What," the blonde scoffed, "Is this really too complicated? A former classmate is inviting you over to catch up. We always were the _best_ of friends, you know."

He squinted his emerald eyes. "Why should I trust you?"

"Because I'm telling you the location of my safe house, which I'm currently at. It's 143 Stelenov Path. I'm expecting you in, oh, half an hour; maximum. See you then, Golden Boy."

And with that, his head disappeared from the flames.

Harry sat there for perhaps another minute, gaping at the sheer audacity of Malfoy. But then again, what did he expect in a meager five years from the Battle of Hogwarts? Maturity? Sure, everyone had hoped that the blond would maybe officially join the Light, or at least apologize, but he had simply taken a position at the Ministry and cut ties with, oh, everyone. Even some former Slytherins, like Zabini, had lost communication with Draco. He worked, went home, repeat. Day after day after day.

According to the rumor mill, of course. Harry hadn't spoken to Draco since seventh year.

He glanced at the clock. It was already twelve, but… Well, he wouldn't actually go over there, would he? It could easily be a trap.

Well….

He sent a letter to Hermione with Hedwig II letting her know what was going on, without specifically giving the address. And half an hour later, Harry threw the Floo powder into the fireplace and stepped in. "143 Stelenov Path," he coughed out, before vanishing.

o.O.o

"Well," Draco said, pouring two cups of tea, "I'll be honest. I didn't expect you to show up." He waved his wand, and the kettle zoomed back to the kitchen, behind Harry – the two were in armchairs facing each other, perpendicular to the flickering fireplace. He then slid a mug across the coffee table to Harry, who glanced at it suspiciously.

"No thanks."

The blond scoffed. "Fine."

Harry paused before pulling out his wand and tapping the mug – someone had developed a spell to test if a drink was spiked, after a rich heir was poisoned by his girlfriend for infidelity. After a few moments, the mug glowed blue, and Harry picked it up slowly.

"Why did you call me here?" He took a small sip, and his glasses fogged up.

Draco's grip tightened on the mug, though he kept his tone nonchalant. "Come on, do we have to jump into business? How's Weaselette? Engage in small talk, it's polite."

"Fine." Harry set the drink down and waited for his glasses to clear somewhat. "First of all, call her that again and I'm leaving. Second, I don't know how you didn't hear, considering it's all over the news, but we're no longer together. Since about a month ago."

"Hmm." Draco pursed his lips. "Well I haven't been reading the Daily Prophet, it's just a rag. I'm surprised I didn't hear Granger screeching about it, though."

"Oh, right – you work together. How's that faring?"

"She hasn't hexed me yet, I consider that a success."

Harry nodded sagely, brushing some leftover ash off his sleeves and onto the thickly carpeted floor. "Well, give it some time. You'll piss her off eventually."

" _Thanks._ "

They fell silent, and Harry used that time to look around. There only seemed to be one or two bedrooms, and there was a closet by the front door that had an umbrella stand by it. It was quaint, with candles flickering above the fireplace and the kitchen completely visible from the living room, and devoid of a House Elf or two.

"I expected it to be… larger," he said absentmindedly.

Draco quirked a brow, and Harry colored.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. It's just that you were always so stuck up – you still are, I think – so I figured anything you owned would be… excessive."

The blond shrugged. "Sometimes it's good to have a smaller space. Obviously my manor is much, much larger than this. Twenty times larger? It's probably larger than your house, too. And better decorated."

"You can go ahead and think that. So, speaking of love lives, how's Astoria doing? Did you propose, or…?"

"Oh, I broke that off a while ago. God, Potter, aren't you reading the news? Or do you only bother when it's about you?"

"Very funny, Malfoy."

He smirked. "I certainly thought so. Fame finally go to your head? It was only a matter of time."

Harry scowled. "Alright, I'm done. I want answers. Now. Why you called me here?"

Draco leaned forward and placed the mug delicately on the table. The front of his robe flared open slightly, and Harry could see the collarbones jutting out violently. Then he looked closer, at the way Draco's hair was thinning slightly, and the way his sallow skin stretched over the crevices he had for cheekbones now. The blond leaned back in the chair, thin wrists resting on the arms, and he heaved a sigh before looking up.

His clouded blue eyes met Harry's bright ones, and he said, "Because I'm dying, Potter."


	2. Albatross

**This is a bit of a filler chapter, but I should be able to get the third up soon (fingers crossed!).**

 **Huge thanks to Butterwhisky, SkylerKnight, DarkRavie, EmotionalDreamer101, and Linda (Guest) for being my first reviewers:)**

2.

Harry blanched. " _What?_ "

Draco absentmindedly picked at a loose thread on his robe– it was in perfect condition besides the ends of the sleeves. "I don't think you misheard me Potter; I'm dying. I've got six months, supposedly, unless they find a cure."

"I… I don't understand. Of what?"

Draco smoothed down his platinum hair and sighed. "Is the whole story necessary? It's rather long and I was hoping to ask you for a favor, hence the reason I contacted you."

Harry scowled instinctively before attempting to mask it by bringing his fist to his mouth and clearing his throat. "Yes, I think it does. I mean, if you got this… thing… by – I don't know, something bad – then obviously I would be less inclined to help you."

The blond laughed sardonically. "Basically what you're saying is, if I got cursed by an illegal substance or an old family heirloom or if I tried to torture someone and the spell backfired, then you'd walk out, right? And ignore me dying and just go back to your life while I wasted away."

"Did you do any of that?"

" _No._ "

"Then it doesn't matter, but I still want to know. Humor me."

"…You'll laugh."

Harry peered incredulously at him. "Malfoy, I know we never exactly got along at Hogwarts, but I assure you, there is no circumstance under which I would laugh about you telling me about your impending… you know."

Draco propped his elbow up on the arm of the chair and rested his head on his hand. "Well, if the situations were reversed, I would," he said matter-of-a-fact.

"Are you actively trying to drive me away now? Some sort of pureblood pride?"

The blond flinched. "No." He pursed his lips, then sat up tall with his chin high. "If I were trying to drive you away, you'd be gone."

Harry, channeling his former arch-nemesis, had a slight smirk on his face. Dealing with the press for weeks, months, years – they still bothered him often enough – after the Battle of Hogwarts had left him somewhat devious, or so he thought. "Then tell me, or I'm gone. If you're not trying to get me to leave then you want me to stay. Tell me and I will."

"Ooh, _flawless_ logic, Potter, didn't see that coming. _I'll leave because you don't want me to_. This is blackmail." Draco crossed his arms. "I'm sitting here, dying, and you're trying to play games?"

Harry shook his head almost sadly. "Fine."

He began to stand up, and Draco quickly said, "Wait!"

Draco grimaced at the former Gryffindor's triumphant smile. "Sit down, and we'll talk." Harry plopped down in the fine armchair, looking expectantly at Draco. "Alright," he said in defeat. "Alright."

The blond paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. "Well, as you know, I work in the Department for Magical Law Enforcement. See, I've struggled, Potter. I've struggled to redeem myself, to prove that I wasn't who I acted as towards our later school years. You haven't had to do that. From the start, you were on the right side."

Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Draco put up his hand. "The point is, I wanted to do something… good, I guess. Oh, don't give me that look. Anyway, I didn't exactly want to be an Auror, but I still wanted to do something within Magical Law Enforcement. So obviously I choose the Patrol."

"Why not become an Auror or Hit Wizard?"

"Are… are you kidding?" At Harry's blank look, Draco explained patronizingly, "They wouldn't let me. Allow a former Death Eater-" he hiccupped over those two words, "-into the Auror training program? I was barely able to join Magical Law Enforcement Patrol – MLEP, because the name's too bloody long – and I only could because I still had some wield as a Head of an old family, and, as much as I hate to admit it, Granger vouched for me."

Harry pondered for a moment. "The Magi- the MLEP, they were the one who arrested Morfin Gaunt for the murder of Voldemort's – are you serious?" Harry looked taken aback at Draco's cringe, and the former Gryffindor shook his head before continuing, "of _Vol-de-mort's_ Muggle family."

"Thanks for sharing," Draco said snippily. "Would you like me to continue, or-?"

"By all means, go ahead."

"Well, we tracked down a dark wizard. And see, if the Ministry had known that he were a real danger or that he were a fugitive, then it would've been the Hit Wizards or Witch Watchers and then I wouldn't be in this mess. But no, we haven't been conversing with the Americans much. So they didn't let us know to be on the lookout for an up and coming Dark Lord. Although I don't think he had a large following, so I don't know if he's a Dark _Lord_."

Harry leaned forward, enraptured.

"So my little group, which is just four people including me, we get a task one day, maybe four days ago. Apparently some wizard was performing magic in front of Muggles. See, the trouble is, when we get to the location we were given, it's a bloody huge rural area to cover. So we split up into two groups. I looked with my partner one way, the other two are searching in the opposite direction.

"Then we see a guy, terrifying some poor farmers – the man's cows are slaughtered, a real awful dark curse – and so we go in. And we corner him – I was with some former Ravenclaw by the way; Boot, I think. Anyway, we corner him and he goes wild shooting off spells. I manage to dodge most of them, but then he clipped my shoulder – I was trying to help Boot, by the way, that's how he got me. Even after that, I managed to hit him with a stunner, since it wasn't my wand arm that was injured. Boot went to go get help, and I sat on the ground with my hand to my shoulder, when all of the sudden, I can't see clearly."

Draco sat in thought for a few seconds. "And you know," he laughed softly, "I thought it was a side effect of the curse. But they get me to St. Mungo's, and they ran a few tests, and then they let me know what the guy did."

"What was it?" Harry wondered.

"Some curse that evokes genetic disorders. See, as witches and wizards, our magic core can generally suppress things like that. So with most people, they just get shortness of breath and things like that at most – asthma. And those are fine, but often, in pureblood families, the diseases aren't entirely… bred out. So lucky me; I have a disease. It was a suppressed one, but not any longer."

Harry clenched his hands together. "Where do I come in? Did the guy escape?"

"Oh, no; he was extradited back to America. We didn't get any say, of course."

"So…?"

Draco took a deep breath. "Well, at Mungo's, they said that my… disorder… wasn't exactly researched much. Not like magical diseases. Especially since, like I said, most people don't have genetic diseases anymore. Even if they did, it's rarely serious. So there's little information on what I have. They don't have a name for it, but others do."

"Others?" Harry echoed dubiously.

"Yes," Draco said, " _Others._ Which, incidentally, is where I need your help. I couldn't go to Granger, because if she found out about this, she'd try to _really_ help me."

Harry scoffed. "And me helping you is any better? Maybe you'd have a chance to survive if you went to her. And why not go to your friends?"

"I'd rather you help me because when I inevitably die, you're less likely to go mad with grief. You know how emotional Granger can get. And what friends? I can't trust anyone with this, even if we still spoke. They're all Slytherins. Obviously that's not a bad thing, but I am too. I know how they'd react, if they even responded to my messages as you did. But you – well, you've got some asinine Gryffindor integrity. "

Harry bit the inside of his cheek. "So, what exactly is this favor?"

"I need you… to go with me… to a hospital."

"You said you already went to Mungo's."

"A… muggle one."

Harry froze, mouth agape, for an instant; then his body shook with repressed laughter, he pressed his hand to his mouth as hard as he could without breaking teeth, and his face turned red.

"Oh, _laugh. It. Up._ "

"S-sorry," Harry managed to say. "I'm sorry. I know this is serious." He attempted to compose himself, but then his lip quivered and he fell into hysterics. "S-s-sor-ry!"

" _Well?_ " Draco said, loudly and impatiently, cutting across Harry's chortles. "Yes or no? I need someone to be a bridge to the Muggle world, and I thought I'd ask you, but maybe that was a mistake."

"I…" Harry, having gotten all his laughter out, was back to a solemn nature. His lips were still somewhat curled up at first, but that soon faded. "I don't know." He avoided Draco's accusing eyes, and mumbled. "I've got a lot to do. I don't think I have time."

"Yeah. Tell me about it."

Harry swallowed. "I-"

Draco stood gracefully and stepped behind the chair, and Harry dared to look at him. His skin, which had always been pale, was near translucent. There were green veins near his temples, and a thin purple one curling around the corner of his mouth; Harry thought that he could count them all. "Then go." Draco turned to face the front door, but he did not move. He allowed his back to rest against the chair's back, and Harry saw the tremors in the blond's arms and shoulders that Draco attempted to conceal.

"I'll do it."

Draco turned his head ever so slightly. "I don't want your pity," he said harshly.

Harry stood as well. "But you do want my help. I don't do much nowadays anyway. But sometimes I have Teddy over, so fair warning. Just Floo me, you have my address."

He moved over to the fireplace and grabbed a bit of the green powder from the ornate pot sitting on the mantle.

"Thank you, Potter."

"Don't thank me yet." Harry looked over his shoulder at Draco. "I haven't cured you. I will though; but only so you stop whining."

The last thing Harry heard before he said his address and left the safe-house was Draco scoffing.


	3. Pigeon

**Finally got around to this again – I started to make it into an original story, with quite a few alterations, but of course I will continue this version as well.**

 **Huge thanks to Mrs. Shanique Volturi-Whitlock, Linda (Guest), and CrackShiper for reviewing!**

 **This is still unbeta-ed, which I'm looking into changing.**

 **If you want to get in touch, feel free to DM me or contact me on tumblr (thirteenferalcats) which I check more often haha.**

 **Anyway, on with chapter three!**

3.

After Harry had arrived home, he'd gone into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of firewhiskey. He'd downed that, and then poured himself another. After gulping that down too, eyes watering, he'd mustered up the courage to Floo Hermione.

In the past, Harry had tried to call people using Floo. But kneeling on the floor and sticking his head into the fireplace was never something he could truly get used to, and he's get soot up his nose and under his glasses. So instead, he went directly to her house.

And as usual, he tumbled into her living room, landing flat on his back.

Hermione ran into the room, wand outstretched, before she took in Harry's crumpled form. He grinned crookedly at her.

"Harry," she sighed.

"Remember when I was visiting you so much that you put out cushions to break my fall," he said as she helped him stand up. "Whatever happened to those days?"

Hermione put her hands on her hips. "Harry, I'm an adult. I can't have random pillows strung around my floor, what if a hot date comes back?"

Harry double-took, saw the blush she was fighting to keep down, and then laughed. She and Ron had split amicably, after all. "Well, it'd be a lot easier, you know, if you couldn't make it to the bedroom." Red blossomed up her neck and colored her cheeks, and Harry stuck his finger in her face. "See, you're still the Golden Girl. You had me going for a second though, I was wondering if Lavender had Polyjuiced herself again."

Despite herself, Hermione huffed out a laugh. "I assure you, you'd know if Lavender pretended to be me. Not that she'd manage it again, although I still don't understand how she got my hair the first time."

"C'mon, Mione," Harry said, lifting up a strand of bushy hair. "Let's be honest here: you shed."

She smacked his hand away. "I do _not!_ "

Harry raised his arms in mock-surrender. "Alright, if you say so." The witch turned around and began to stalk off to the kitchen, only to stop as Harry whispered, "You definitely do."

Which of course led to The Brightest Witch of Their Generation spinning around and smacking The Boy-Who-Lived across the head with her open palm.

Harry, not one to take something like that lying down, grabbed a couch pillow and chucked it at her.

Hermione grabbed a cushion, hit him, and then suddenly there was a combination of magic and pillow fights. Hermione levitated the entire couch between the two of them when Harry, with his Quidditch-honed aim, had managed to hit her head three times in a row. Then Harry succeeded in summoning every single pillow within a half-mile radius and, well, neighbors came knocking.

o.O.o

"I cannot believe you, Harry James Potter," Hermione hissed as the last of her neighbors finally left with a mountain of pillows.

He shrugged, nonchalantly perched on her stairs and sipping a glass of apple juice. "At least you don't live in a Muggle neighborhood." Harry waved and smiled to a few neighbors who were still peering at the two through the living room window. Hermione huffed and flicked her wand to shut the curtains, despite the audible groans.

"Why are you here, anyway?"

Ignoring her harshness for the time being, Harry replied. "Draco contacted me."

"Oh?" Hermione walked away to the kitchen, prompting Harry to follow her. Fine by him, he needed more juice. He was more tired than he'd been in a while.

"Yeah. He's dying."

Hermione hopped onto the counter and crossed her ankles. "Actually?"

"I mean, I didn't check. He looked ill. I don't know, I'm not a Healer. I figure if he's willing to go to a Muggle hospital then he's probably actually sick."

She played with her necklace. "Why a Muggle hospital? I'm sure that he could get fixed up quicker at St. Mungo's. Are you sure he isn't just having you on?"

Harry shrugged. "Not sure, no. And he said that he was hit with a dark curse, that it was a genetic defect – I'm pretty sure he mentioned inbreeding as a result, by the way – and that only Muggles could deal with that since, after all, wizards don't really have issues with genetics. I'm guessing he repeated everything verbatim from a Mediwitch, though, since I only vaguely remember genetics and I don't think we went over it at Hogwarts."

"Hmm. I don't remember it all either, but if it's serious and Healers can't help, then perhaps Muggles can. Why you, though?" Hermione narrowed her chocolate eyes. "I don't think he'd lie about all that, but if it were truly serious then wouldn't he go to a former friend?"

"I wouldn't trust a former Slytherin with something that embarrassing."

Hermione slowly nodded. "True, Draco _is_ still a prominent figure. Do you think, whatever he has, that it would ruin his reputation? He may just be paranoid."

" _Incest,_ Hermione."

"You know less about incest than purebloods." She raked a hand through her hair. "It's not even surprising anymore, it's _whoops, the Parkinsons just had another Squib because so-and-so married her second-cousin_."

Harry blanched. "Really?"

She nodded energetically. "And honestly, you'd think that they'd know better, but they don't. Not Pansy, by the way, but her cousin or something, I don't know. Daphne told me about it. She could've been lying, but I don't think she was."

"Huh."

They sat in silence for a moment. Harry wordlessly cleaned his glass and set it away again. "Hermione?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Do you think I should help him?"

She was silent for a moment. "Yes. You're the bigger person, Harry, you always were. It would eat you up if you had the chance to help him but you didn't and he died or went blind or went deaf or anything bad."

Harry nodded. "Okay. Okay, then, I will."

Hermione fell silent for a few moments before speaking. "Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you have Teddy?"

Harry swore loudly and darted back to the fireplace, Hermione's laughter ringing through the small house.


End file.
